NEWS FLASH: According to a source at City Hall, the Austin Transportation Department is slated to give a big presentation June 14 that will be “a substantial briefing” on urban rail and begins to start answering Uncle Lee’s 30 crucial questions and “then some.”
The mayor has pushed a 2012 bond election funding a first leg for a new mode of mass transit in Austin.
The briefing starts a little after 9:30 a.m., at City Hall and is viewable online. Inshallah, this hearing will be posted on replay and the pertinent parts will be cut and posted on YouTube.
Transportation is one of the most important issues facing Austin, and is even more important to the continued success of downtown. If you are interested in the urban core, this is an issue you need to be abreast of.
Can Austin afford this? Last month I watched the April meeting of the sub-committee for public safety where a representative of the budget office and each of the public safety groups (EMS, Fire and police) reported their budgets and necessities. While the budget officer said the city intends to raise property taxes as high as they are legally allowed to do for the next five years, the public safety groups still had pages and pages of “unmet needs”. Even the highest rate of raising property taxes won’t cover these supposed unmet needs. How will this be funded?
I find it amusing that the city decides to do something public about transit on a week day morning while I’m at my 8-5 job in downtown Austin. I can only assume the majority of us who support transit, reserved guide-way, light rail, etc also aren’t available for some last minute announced meeting about transit at 9:30 in the morning on a weekday.
Could be worse; you could be at your 8-5 job in Westlake.
The fact that not one of Uncle Lee’s questions addresses the single most important issue of all (reserved versus shared guideway) is due to the unchallenging support most local rail advocates have given this project (just because it’s rail and people you like are supporting it).
The Red Line should have taught these people better, but the campaign of folks like JMVC to marginalize those of us who have proven we know much better but don’t have the time to be part of the meetingocracy clearly worked.